The Lesser of Two Evils
by glitterburn
Summary: John/Balthazar. Balthazar offers John a Faustian pact.


**The Lesser of Two Evils**

John sits at his desk and watches the light filter through the blinds. His apartment tends to startle visitors. It startled him, the first time the letting agent showed him around. But then it made him laugh, too. With one snap, with one tug at the chain, the blinds all rolled up, clattering like applause, and the light shone in, brighter than any halogens. A neat trick: a devastating trick. And it amused John. It reminded him of Creation, of how God had made night and day, darkness and light. It reminded him of how easy it was to cross over from one to the other, to descend from Heaven into Hell. He doesn't need reminding, but he still likes the trickery of it.

Now he sits with only one blind rolled open: enough to let the light bleed in slowly. Behind him, in the kitchen, the refrigerator hums quietly. He can hear a clock ticking somewhere. It annoys him. Anything to do with time annoys him these days. He thought he'd removed all the clocks from the apartment. He must have missed one. He can't be bothered to move just yet. He'll find it later. After this cigarette.

John knows that the cigarettes are the only timepieces he needs. With each one put to his lips and inhaled, he knocks off another five minutes, half an hour, a morning, a day, from his lifetime. He wonders how soon he can start calculating his remaining lifespan in weeks.

He tips out the cigarettes from the pack and arranges them neatly on his desk. There are five left. He picks one up and parts his lips around it. He doesn't light it yet. He closes his eyes and imagines that he can taste the nicotine already. His tongue is still furred with the tar of his last cigarette, but aftertaste is nothing compared to the clean, sharp bitters of the first drag of a new cigarette.

There is the sudden scent of sulphur. John is momentarily confused - he doesn't use matches; it has been years since he last smelled the catch of a match against the rough sand of the strike-plate – and then he realises he is not alone.

He keeps his eyes closed.

The smell of sulphur used to excite him, as if it were a perfume upon the skin of a woman, or the base-note of musk in a man's sweat. But his guest is neither woman nor man, although he takes the form of a human male for the sake of convenience. John has seen the real face behind the mask of flesh and bone, and it is one that haunts him in the nights when sleep eludes him.

Now the smell of sulphur lies more acrid than before. Even if he breathes it in through his nose, he can still taste it on his tongue. It overlies the tar of the nicotine. John can't bear that thought, and so he takes up his lighter and clicks it open.

There's a flare of light before him. John can feel the flame against his skin. He refuses to flinch back from it, and instead he leans into it and hears the rustle-smoulder as the paper and tobacco catches light. He takes a drag of his cigarette. Only then, after he's swallowed down the smoke, does he open his eyes.

Balthazar's hand is still held in front of him, fingers curled to hold in check the demonic flame that dances across the human hand. It's a cheap trick. But, like the trick with the apartment blinds, it is impressive no matter how many times he's seen it before.

"What do you want?" John asks.

Balthazar withdraws his hand, motions with it lazily, and the flame dies. He retreats to the other side of the desk and stands there, blocking the light. John can only see him in silhouette, unless he squints and tilts his head. He can't be bothered to do that, though, so he blows out a plume of smoke and obscures the demon even more.

"I thought you might want to talk about the results from the hospital."

John taps ash into his coffee-cup. "No. Why would I want to do that?"

"We should…" Balthazar appears to think for a moment before he continues, "discuss your options."

"I have none. I'm dying."

Balthazar smiles as if proud. "Exactly. I meant: your options for when you arrive in Hell."

John rolls the cigarette between his fingers, and laughs. He manages to keep the bark of the cough out of his laughter, but nevertheless he's aware of the dark edge to the sound. "Yeah. Because you just can't wait, can you? Jesus. I bet they've started lining up already, haven't they. What is it, Balthazar, have you got them to stand in line in the order I sent them down there, or is it just first come, first served?"

"You seem to have got the wrong idea about Hell."

"Sure I have. All that fire and brimstone stuff, the screaming of the tortured souls, those brain-sucking demons I see every time I go down there – that's just heavenly propaganda, right?" This time, John's laughter is hollow; and this time he coughs: cankerous laughter, built around the scratchy wheeze that counts down the days till his death just as surely as the clock does.

"For an exorcist you certainly take a dim view of things, John."

"And for a demon you're disgustingly confident."

"Part of the job description. We have to be optimists." Balthazar plucks his silver coin from thin air and flips it once, twice, before he starts to roll it along the back of his knuckles. John knows from long experience that the demon only does this when he's killing time or when he's plotting malicious intent. If John didn't know better, then he'd say that Balthazar only played with the coin when he was nervous.

Not that a demon could get nervous. Could he?

"So tell me what I've got to look forwards to in Hell," John says. "All the torment I'll go through. You'll love that, won't you?"

Balthazar looks pained. "Actually, no, I won't."

"You've got to be kidding me." John waves a hand to move the cloud of smoke between them. "How come you've suddenly got a conscience?"

"Oh, I haven't." Balthazar leans forwards across the table, and suddenly John can see his features quite clearly despite the backlighting of the sunshine. "It's just that my claim on you is far down the list, and I don't like the idea of having to wait that long. Who knows what the rest of them might do to you before it's my turn?"

John stabs the cigarette back between his lips and sucks on the filter so hard that the tip glows with vicious fire. He exhales. "I thought the whole point of the torment of Hell was that I lived each wave of pain afresh."

"Yes, yes. But you will remember each torment, each moment of agony. Not just once but over and over. You'll remember the last time, and the time before that, and the time before that… The memory of pain weakens the soul." Balthazar tosses the coin and catches it with his other hand. "When it's my turn, I don't want you as well-used as a whore in your mind, I want you as fresh and unspoiled as a virgin."

John raises an eyebrow. "So, these 'options' you were talking about…"

"Well, now." Balthazar gives him a bland smile. "You could save yourself a lot of pain and trouble by fast-tracking yourself in Hell."

"Fast-tracking…?" John stubs out his cigarette and reaches for the next one. He moves it between his fingers, the way that Balthazar rolls the coin. "You mean I can skip the line and go direct to you?"

"In effect." The smile is not so bland now. It looks almost tempting.

"And this gives you, what, exclusive rights over my soul?"

Balthazar's gaze wanders over him. "And your body. You do get to keep your corporeal form, you know. There'd be no fun in it, otherwise."

"I thought my soul would be of more interest."

"You're wrong. I find your body much more interesting."

John leans back in his chair. "Demonic sex torture. How kinky."

"You used to like it," says Balthazar, simply.

"There was less of the torture involved back then. And that was before I knew you were a demon."

"You always knew, John. You always knew."

John is not so sure that he did. But then, memory, like all else in his life, has been tainted by the knowledge of his own mortality, and the mortality of creatures that humans would previously have called immortals. Once, he thought he could detect demons by their scent alone – the scent of sulphur. Once, he thought he could save the demons as well as their hosts. That was how it had been with Balthazar. He hadn't seen that the host and the demon behind it were one and the same.

Or maybe he had: John has a recollection of warm flesh against the cold silver of mirrors. So many mirrors in a locked room, but the demon had not been drawn out of the host's body. Instead all that was reflected back was their bodies, Balthazar naked and John in his sober black suit. Their struggles were not the flailings of exorcism; their undulations became aligned, not fought over. John can remember the tap of the coin against the glass; the tightening of fingers in his hair; and the mist of their breath over the mirror. He remembers the perfume of sulphur wrapped inside the musk of a man's sweat. He remembers how it had surprised him: not that the host should be aroused, because that was usual – but that _he_ was aroused as much as by the demon as by the host.

Because it was about possession. It was always about possession.

"You're tempted, aren't you." Balthazar's voice cuts into his thoughts.

John sits forwards and looks at his cigarette, measuring it between his fingers. He wonders how much death is contained in so small a thing. He asks, "What if I am? Do I have to sign a pact with you or something?"

Balthazar nods slowly, as if wary of looking too eager. "It's very simple. Just sign an agreement that you'll give yourself to me, body and soul, when you enter Hell. That should circumnavigate all the other red tape that tends to clog up the system. It's a kind of hellish last will and testament, if you like. It overrides all prior claims."

"And what do I get in return?"

Balthazar frowns; startled. "What?"

"Aren't you supposed to give me something in return for my immortal soul?"

"No." Balthazar stares at him as if he's gone mad. "I've already offered you the chance to have just one tormentor – me – rather than the hundred or so others that are waiting for you. Don't you think that's enough of an incentive?"

John thinks about it for a while. He lights his cigarette and watches the demon grow impatient. He wonders if the contract needs to be written in blood. Demons like blood. They feed on it. John can remember the time when Balthazar took him into the kitchen and took a knife from the block, and with both their hands wrapped around the handle, the blade had scored fine lines across John's chest. Not words or images of the kind that warn an exorcist of demonic work, but simple, straight lines that drew beads of bright red blood. It had excited Balthazar into a frenzy of lust; it had excited John to be the object of such devouring desire.

He sighs.

Balthazar tilts his head, waiting for the response.

John makes his decision. He puts down his cigarette, balancing it carefully across the rim of the coffee-cup where it lies, trembling, the smoke ascending into the air while the ash crumbles slowly into the darkness below.

"My name is not Faust," John says.

Balthazar's expression does not change. "Pity."

"You don't have any."

"For you, I wish that I did." As quickly as he came, Balthazar is gone.

John lights his third cigarette from the leavings of the second, and sits back in his chair. Around him, lingering like perfume, is the scent of sulphur. Somewhere in the apartment, a clock is ticking. He'll go and find it; go and silence it, just as soon as he's smoked this last cigarette.

**end**


End file.
